At 6/14/08 09:25 AM, Deflektor wrote:
Isn't LJCoffee around ? I remember PMing him a bunch of MAC suggestions

This is taken from the PM that Deflektor sent me last December - these were his ideas.-"Heaven or Hell ?" theme : As for the MAC November's "DnB versus Ambient", it includes making a duel between two genres. Contestants write their vision of Heaven or Hell (or both)

-"Battle" theme : Now THAT is a vague one. It's that simple, the contestants just write their BEST battle theme ever. I heard many battle themes in previous MACs (mostly the Pico and Castle Crashers themes). I think it would be interesting to hear different kind of battle themes. There's just a little flaw in that theme : i hardly imagine a battle theme in some genres, which puts a limit of variety.

-"Typical country music" theme : Well, basically, you choose a country (other than yours if possible), and make a music typical of that country. The problem is, i fear that soundfonts are abused on this one (there are a load of soundfonts ripped from typical music you can hear in many music, professional as amateur). It's up to the team about this one.

-"Be your own idol" theme : Now that is one i'm not sure about. The goal of this one is to make a tune in the style of your idol (or a composer or artist you like). However, taking my own example, there's some flaws here : to judge entries, you have to know about the artist the contestant chose. No offense, dude, but i don't think you know Yoshitaka Hirota, Jean-Michel Jarre, Mike Oldfield, or Gustaf Grefberg that much. You see what i mean ? Besides, only the best artists here could do something like that. But well, i still suggest this, in the case it gives you another idea.

-"Tears" theme : The contestants write something that would bring a tear, either by being utterly sad, either by being marvelously beautiful. Seeing that even that german fucker Darkside (lol, rule 10) made a sad song last year, on the MAC November 2006, i do believe this theme would work, and maybe would reveal the full talent of some artists.

-"Ng characters" theme : As for Pico, the MAC team chooses a NG character, and the contestant write something based on it. NG having lots of characters with lots of flash, i think that would be a great idea, as the flash makers would be delighted to use something made specifically for these characters.

-"NG audio artists characters" theme : This will need some of the artistic sensitivity of the contestants (and the listeners, too). Basically, the contestants write a theme for a character they imagined, and it's up to everyone listening to the songs to guess what kind of character it is. Of course, judging would be based on quality. As i said, it would bring the artistic sensitivity of everyone, because this is what we are : artists.

-"Feelings" theme : Like the one above, the contestants have to depict a particular feeling trough their music. Either choose one or two, either let the contestants choose any feeling they want.

-"Changes" theme : Contestants would have to write something different from their prominent genre(s). Taking my own example, my prominent genres are ambient and classical, meaning that every ambient or classical would be PROSCRIBED for me. It's generally obvious to see what is the prominent genre(s) of each artist, so it might work.

Hey Solues.
I kid you not, i had that exact same idea, but I did'nt post it. And this is why:
If you take a picture as the theme, people can interpret it in a million different ways, and there is no right or wrong way to turn it into music. A submission might have hours put into it, but the judge might not see it the same way the artist does, and therefore might not judge it "correctly".
Also, someone who did'nt lose, would say: "Oh, you just don't see it as deeply as I do, you have no vision etc etc"

I just don't think it would work, there would be an endless horde of dissagreements, and the very creators of it would probably end up locking it.

No - it did very well. (I think)
Huge pain in the ass to manage but we did have really good participation. That one was an evil-bitch to judge as there were over 100 submissions in two categories. Almost like two MACs in one...
There were ideas floating around for several more "VS." MACs but they were never fully realized.

At 6/14/08 06:32 PM, Nintechno wrote:
Hey Solues.
I kid you not, i had that exact same idea, but I did'nt post it. And this is why:
If you take a picture as the theme, people can interpret it in a million different ways, and there is no right or wrong way to turn it into music. A submission might have hours put into it, but the judge might not see it the same way the artist does, and therefore might not judge it "correctly".
Also, someone who did'nt lose, would say: "Oh, you just don't see it as deeply as I do, you have no vision etc etc"

I just don't think it would work, there would be an endless horde of dissagreements, and the very creators of it would probably end up locking it.

I'm glad you have the intelligence to realize that. That's music for you. But you also list an emotion themed and environmental themed based contest, which can be percieved exactly the same way you described.

At 6/15/08 02:58 PM, Lance wrote:
I'm glad you have the intelligence to realize that. That's music for you. But you also list an emotion themed and environmental themed based contest, which can be percieved exactly the same way you described.

Ah yes, but at the end of the day, ANY themed competition could be percieved that way. And it doesn't matter, because the judges decision is final.

At 6/16/08 06:44 PM, dirtydigital wrote:
Could we take an extremely popular audio portal submission and get the composer to post the .wav track and possibly session file and have a remix based only on that material?

Well, that's actually a cool idea! They'd have to post multitracks and midi, though, so that we all can use.

At 6/16/08 06:44 PM, dirtydigital wrote:
Could we take an extremely popular audio portal submission and get the composer to post the .wav track and possibly session file and have a remix based only on that material?

Almost went down that road once before - the hard feelings and pisstivity that came out of it was enough to make everyone decide to trash the idea.